Tattooed Lady

A customer told me a great story yesterday. She came through my line and as she paid for her groceries I noticed a tattoo on the back of her right wrist. It was of an elephant with his tail towards the viewer and his face towards the sky. He was gazing up at a rainbow which bridged two puffy white clouds - one to his right and one to his left. The illustration looked familiar. I asked her whether it was Babar, a character from a series of books for children. She said it wasn't, that she herself had drawn it. I searched my memory for the hidden cause of this image's familiarity. As the customer witnessed my struggle, she told me how this image came into being:

"My daughter wanted to get a tattoo at the age of 12. I told her that once she turned 18, we would get one together. So when she turned 18, she was ready to take me up on that. In the tattoo parlor, I looked at the art on the walls and in books but saw nothing I liked. So I drew this elephant. It's just something I knew how to draw.

"The problem is, once you do something of this nature for one kid, the rest of them think it's a tradition. So when my son turned 18, he said, "Ok, I'm ready." I said, "Ready for what?" "My tattoo." So I had to get another. I chose the rainbow because I thought it would be a happy thing for me to look at when I'm old and unable to do very much for myself.

"I figured our other son would want to follow suit when he turns 18. But when he was 12, he asked if getting a tattoo hurts. I told him it does. He asked if it bleeds and I said yes. At that point he very decisively told me he did not want to get a tattoo. I was relieved that I would not have to go through that again.

"His 18th birthday is approaching and he he still does not want a tattoo. Instead, he wants to go skydiving. And of course he expects me to do it, too. We'll see how that goes."

I found it entertaining that the third child was concerned about the pain and bleeding associated with getting a tattoo but did not consider the potential pain and bleeding that could occur when falling rapidly from a great height towards the ground.